Personality and emotional processing: A relationship between extraversion and the late positive potential in adolescence

Neurophysiological responses to emotional faces predict dynamic fluctuations in affect in adolescents

The ability to accurately identify and interpret others' emotions is critical for social and emotional functioning during adolescence. Indeed, previous research has identified that laboratory-based indices of facial emotion recognition and engagement with emotional faces predict adolescent mood states. Whether socioemotional information processing relates to real-world affective dynamics using an ecologically sensitive approach, however, has rarely been assessed. In the present study, adolescents (N = 62; ages 13-18) completed a Facial Recognition Task, including happy, angry, and sad stimuli, while EEG data were acquired. Participants also provided ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data probing their current level of happiness, anger, and sadness for 1-week, resulting in indices of emotion (mean-level, inertia, instability). Analyses focused on relations between (1) accuracy for and (2) prolonged engagement with (LPP) emotional faces and EMA-reported emotions. Greater prolonged engagement with happy faces was related to less resistance to changes in happiness (i.e., less happiness inertia), whereas greater prolonged engagement with angry faces associated with more resistance to changes in anger (i.e., greater anger inertia). Results suggest that socioemotional processes captured by laboratory measures have real-world implications for adolescent affective states and highlight potentially actionable targets for novel treatment approaches (e.g., just-in-time interventions). Future studies should continue to assess relations among socioemotional informational processes and dynamic fluctuations in adolescent affective states.

The impact of electrode selection for ocular correction on the reward positivity and late positive potential components in adolescents

Electroencephalography (EEG) data processing to derive event-related potentials (ERPs) follows a standard set of procedures to maximize signal-to-noise ratio. This often includes ocular correction, which corrects for artifacts introduced by eye movements, typically measured by electrooculogram (EOG) using facial electrodes near the eyes. Yet, attaching electrodes to the face may be uncomfortable for some populations, best to avoid in some situations, and contribute to data loss. Eye movements can also be measured using electrodes in a standard 10-20 EEG cap. An examination of the impact of electrode selection on ERPs is needed to inform best practices. The present study examined data quality when using different electrodes to measure eye movements for ocular correction (i.e., facial electrodes, cap electrodes, and no ocular correction) for two well-established and widely studied ERP components (i.e., reward positivity, RewP; and late positive potential, LPP) elicited in adolescents (N = 34). Results revealed comparable split-half reliability and standardized measurement error (SME) between facial and cap electrode approaches, with lower SME for the RewP with facial or cap electrodes compared to no ocular correction. Few significant differences in mean amplitude of ERPs were observed, but the LPP to positive images differed when using facial compared to cap electrodes. Findings provide preliminary evidence of the ability to collect high-quality ERP data without facial electrodes. However, when using cap electrodes for EOG measurement and ocular correction, it is recommended to use consistent procedures across the sample or statistically examine the impact of ocular correction procedures on results.

Beyond the RewP: The reward feedback-elicited LPP and its potential associations with perceived stress and internalizing symptoms in late childhood

Internalizing problems increase substantially during late childhood and early adolescence, which are known to be associated with elevated perceived stress as children transition into adolescence. One risk factor that may moderate the stress-symptom association is reward processing. While neurophysiological research in this field has focused on the reward positivity component (RewP) elicited during reward processing, little work has examined the reward feedback-elicited late positive potential (LPP) and its association with internalizing psychopathology. The present study examined the moderating roles of the RewP and feedback-elicited LPP in the relationship between perceived stress and internalizing symptoms in late childhood. A community sample of 115 nine-to-12-year-old children (66 girls, Mean age = 11.00 years, SD = 1.16) completed an EEG version of the reward feedback paradigm, the Doors task, and completed questionnaires on perceived stress and internalizing symptoms. A principal component analysis revealed three temporo-spatial factors that were temporally and spatially analogous to the RewP, anterior LPP, and posterior LPP, respectively. As expected, an enlarged RewP was found towards the win condition compared to the loss condition. We also observed a potentiated LPP towards loss relative to win feedback, which may reflect the evaluation and reappraisal processes following unsuccessful performance (i.e., loss). We did not, however, find significant moderating effects of any ERP components on the stress-symptom association. Our study was first to isolate the feedback-elicited LPP in a reward processing paradigm in children and provide initial evidence on the modulation of the ERP component by task conditions. Future research is warranted to further explore the functional significance of the reward feedback-elicited LPP in association with perceived stress and internalizing psychopathology in youths.

Parsing patterns of reward responsiveness: Initial evidence from latent profile analysis

Variation in reward responsiveness has been linked to psychopathology. Reward responsiveness is a complex phenomenon that encompasses different temporal dimensions (i.e., reward anticipation or consumption) that can be measured using multiple appetitive stimuli. Furthermore, distinct measures, such as neural and self-report measures, reflect related but distinct aspects of reward responsiveness. To understand reward responsiveness more comprehensively and better identify deficits in reward responsiveness implicated in psychopathology, we examined ways multiple measures of reward responsiveness jointly contribute to distinct psychological problems by using latent profile analysis. Specifically, we identified three profiles of reward responsiveness among 139 female participants based on their neural responses to money, food, social acceptance, and erotic images and self-reported responsiveness to reward anticipation and consumption. Profile 1 (n = 30) exhibited blunted neural responses to social rewards and erotic images, low self-reported reward responsiveness, but average neural responses to monetary and food rewards. Profile 2 (n = 71) showed elevated neural response to monetary rewards, average neural responses to other stimuli, and average self-reported reward responsiveness. Profile 3 (n = 38) showed more variable neural responses to reward (e.g., hypersensitivity to erotic images, hyposensitivity to monetary rewards), and high self-reported reward responsiveness. These profiles were differentially associated with variables generally linked to aberrations in reward responsiveness. For example, Profile 1 was most strongly associated with anhedonic depression and social dysfunction, whereas Profile 3 was associated with risk-taking behaviors. These preliminary findings may help to elucidate ways different measures of reward responsiveness manifest within and across individuals and identify specific vulnerabilities for distinct psychological problems.

Triarchic psychopathy and affective picture processing: An event-related potential study

Psychopathy and its precursors appear to be associated with abnormal affective response. For example, individuals high in psychopathy show reduced psychophysiological response to unpleasant stimuli, which might explain low levels of empathy in psychopathic individuals, and their pursuit of individual goals without regard for others' wellbeing. In keeping with the notion that psychopathology is best represented on a continuum, the triarchic model suggests that psychopathy is characterized by elevations on three traits: boldness, meanness and disinhibition. Understanding how these traits relate to psychophysiological response to emotional stimuli would help validate the triarchic model, while also bridging to other psychopathological spectra (e.g., internalizing psychopathology, which is characterized by low boldness). Here, N = 123 young adults passively viewed unpleasant, pleasant and neutral pictures while subjective and electrocortical response were recorded. Controlling for the other triarchic traits, individuals with higher self-reported meanness had smaller late positive potentials (LPPs) to both pleasant and unpleasant pictures, whereas individuals higher in boldness had larger LPPs to unpleasant pictures. In addition, those higher in meanness rated unpleasant pictures as more pleasant and less emotionally arousing. Disinhibition was not associated with the LPP or ratings. Meanness appears to drive blunted response to unpleasant pictures that has previously been observed among those high on psychopathy, and may also be associated with reduced engagement with generic pleasant stimuli. Moreover, results converge with prior work on other traits of transdiagnostic relevance (e.g., extraversion), as well as internalizing symptoms, providing a bridge between psychopathy and other forms of psychopathology.

Pathways to depression: Dynamic associations between neural responses to appetitive cues in the environment, stress, and the development of illness

This review focuses on research my colleagues and I have conducted on etiological pathways to depression. Much of this work has focused on the measurement of neural responses to appetitive cues, using two event-related brain potential (ERP) components, the Late Positive Potential (LPP) and the Reward Positivity (RewP). Reductions in each of these components have been associated with current symptoms of depression, and in some cases have been shown to differentiate anxious from depressive phenotypes. In this review, I will describe three broad and related approaches we have taken in our research to address a series of interdependent issuess. The first attempts to understand different sources of variation in the LPP and RewP, and how these sources interact with one another. The second tries to identify whether variation in the processes measured by these ERP components might reflect a latent vulnerability to depression and its symptoms, that is evident prior to illness onset. And the third examines the possibility that the processes reflected in the LPP and RewP might play a mechanistic role in the development of depression.

Design and implementation of an EEG-based recognition mechanism for the openness trait of the Big Five

The differentiation between the openness and other dimensions of the Big Five personality model indicates that it is necessary to design a specific paradigm as a supplement to the Big Five recognition. The present study examined the relationship between one's openness trait of the Big Five model and the task-related power change of upper alpha band (10–12 Hz). We found that individuals from the high openness group displayed a stronger alpha synchronization over a frontal area in symbolic reasoning task, while the reverse applied in the deductive reasoning task. The results indicated that these two kinds of reasoning tasks could be used as supplement of the Big Five recognition. Besides, we divided one's openness score into three levels and proposed a hybrid-SNN (Spiking Neural Networks)-ANN (Analog Neural Networks) architecture based on EEGNet to recognize one's openness level, named Spike-EEGNet. The recognition accuracy of the two tasks was 90.6 and 92.2%. This result was highly significant for the validation of using a model with hybrid-SNN-ANN architecture for EEG-based openness trait recognition.

Detecting negative valence symptoms in adolescents based on longitudinal self-reports and behavioral assessments

BACKGROUND

Given the high prevalence of depressive symptoms reported by adolescents and associated risk of experiencing psychiatric disorders as adults, differentiating the trajectories of the symptoms related to negative valence at an individual level could be crucial in gaining a better understanding of their effects later in life.

METHODS

A longitudinal deep learning framework is presented, identifying self-reported and behavioral measurements that detect the depressive symptoms associated with the Negative Valence System domain of the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC).

RESULTS

Applied to the annual records of 621 participants (age range: 12 to 17 years) of the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA), the deep learning framework identifies predictors of negative valence symptoms, which include lower extraversion, poorer sleep quality, impaired executive control function and factors related to substance use.

LIMITATIONS

The results rely mainly on self-reported measures and do not provide information about the underlying neural correlates. Also, a larger sample is required to understand the role of sex and other demographics related to the risk of experiencing symptoms of negative valence.

CONCLUSIONS

These results provide new information about predictors of negative valence symptoms in individuals during adolescence that could be critical in understanding the development of depression and identifying targets for intervention. Importantly, findings can inform preventive and treatment approaches for depression in adolescents, focusing on a unique predictor set of modifiable modulators to include factors such as sleep hygiene training, cognitive-emotional therapy enhancing coping and controllability experience and/or substance use interventions.

The effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and neural emotional reactivity in depressed and healthy young adults: A late positive potential study

Depression has been characterized by lowered mood and unfavorable changes in neural emotional reactivity (altered brain responses to emotional stimuli). Physical exercise is a well-established strategy to improve the mood of healthy and depressed individuals. Increasing evidence suggests that exercise might also improve emotional reactivity in healthy adults by increasing or decreasing brain responses to positive or negative stimuli, respectively. It is unknown, however, if exercise could also benefit emotional reactivity in depressed individuals. We investigated the effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and emotional reactivity in 24 depressed and 24 matched healthy young adults. Self-reported mood and neural reactivity to emotional pictures (indexed by the EEG late positive potential, LPP) were assessed before and after two experimental protocols: exercise (36 min of moderate-intensity exercise at 75% of maximal heart rate) and seated rest condition (36 min). In the healthy control group, exercise improved self-reported mood and neural emotional reactivity (increasing LPP to positive pictures). In the depressed group, exercise improved self-reported mood; however, it did not affect neural emotional reactivity. Additional analyses performed on both groups revealed that exercise-induced changes in emotional reactivity are associated with the severity of depressive symptoms: the effectiveness of exercise in improving emotional reactivity decreases with the severity of depressive symptoms. Overall, the study further strengthens the claim of a beneficial role of exercise on mood and emotional reactivity. It also suggests that a single aerobic exercise session might have a limited influence on neural emotional reactivity in depressed individuals.

Longitudinal evidence that Event Related Potential measures of self-regulation do not predict everyday goal pursuit

Self-regulation has been studied across levels of analysis; however, little attention has been paid to the extent to which self-report, neural, and behavioral indices predict goal pursuit in real-life. We use a mixed-method approach (N = 201) to triangulate evidence among established measures of different aspects of self-regulation to predict both the process of goal pursuit using experience sampling, as well as longer-term goal progress at 1, 3, and 6-month follow-ups. While self-reported trait self-control predicts goal attainment months later, we observe a null relationship between longitudinal goal attainment and ERPs associated with performance-monitoring and reactivity to positive/rewarding stimuli. Despite evidence that these ERPs are reliable and trait-like, and despite theorizing that suggests otherwise, our findings suggest that these ERPs are not meaningfully associated with everyday goal attainment. These findings challenge the ecological validity of brain measures thought to assess aspects of self-regulation.

Self-regulation helps people to achieve their goals, and has been studied across modalities. Here, the authors present longitudinal evidence suggesting that common neural and behavioral measures of self-regulation derived from laboratory tasks do not predict everyday goal pursuit.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth with Chronic Pain and Their Parents: A Longitudinal Examination of Who Are Most at Risk

Objectives: Chronic pain and mental illness in youth and parents are poised to reach new heights amidst the societal and healthcare impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence from natural disasters (i.e., hurricanes) suggests that a degree of personal impact and individual personality may moderate the effects of high stress events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on mental health. Methods: In a pre-existing cohort of 84 youth with chronic pain (M_age = 14.39; 12–18 years; 67.8% female) and 90 parents (86.7% female), we examined changes in youth pain interference and youth and parent mental health (depression, anxiety) from before to during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the influence of personal impact of the pandemic (i.e., financial, familial, health, social, occupational, and educational domains) and individual personality (neuroticism, conscientiousness, extroversion). Results: Overall, youth reported significantly lower pain interference and anxiety as compared to pre-pandemic; however, those more personally impacted by the pandemic reported worsening pain interference and anxiety symptoms. Overall, parents reported greater depressive symptoms as compared to pre-pandemic; however, those more personally impacted by the pandemic reported increased anxiety symptoms. Personality traits (high neuroticism, and low conscientiousness and extroversion) predicted worsened pain and mental health, and exacerbated effects of COVID-19-related personal impact on youth and parent anxiety symptoms. Discussion: Identifying risk and resilience profiles in youth and parents at high risk for worsening pain and mental health may better inform matching interventions to individual need.

Distinct aspects of emotion dysregulation differentially correspond to magnitude and slope of the late positive potential to affective stimuli

ABSTRACTEmotion dysregulation (ED) is a transdiagnostic risk factor for several forms of psychopathology. One established, integrative conceptualisation of ED that has informed our understanding of psychopathology (Gratz, K. L., & Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation : development, factor structure, and initial validation of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 26(1), 41-54) was recently extended to account for state-level and specifically physiological aspects of ED. As such, the goal of the current study was to assess the degree to which this conceptualisation could be captured using a physiological, state-level index (i.e. the late positive potential; LPP). Participants (N=41; M_age=27.5 years, SD=11.0) completed a trait-based rating scale measure of the extended conceptualisation of ED and viewed a series of images that ranged in valence (i.e. unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral). Multilevel modelling indicated some points of convergence between rating scale scores and the LPP, and other points of divergence. Findings underscore the utility of a multi-method approach to improve understanding of key transdiagnostic characteristics across levels of analysis. Further, results are novel evidence supporting validity of the extended conceptualisation of ED.

The influence of stimuli valence, extraversion, and emotion regulation on visual search within real-world scenes

Affective traits, including extraversion and emotion regulation, are important considerations in clinical psychology due to their associations with the occurrence of affective disorders. Previously, emotional real-world scenes have been shown to influence visual search. However, it is currently unknown whether extraversion and emotion regulation can influence visual search towards neutral targets embedded within real-world scenes, or whether these traits can impact the effect of emotional stimuli on visual search. An opportunity sample of healthy individuals had trait levels of extraversion and emotion regulation recorded before completing a visual search task. Participants more accurately identified search targets in neutral images compared to positive images, whilst response times were slower in negative images. Importantly, individuals with higher trait levels of expressive suppression displayed faster identification of search targets regardless of the emotional valence of the stimuli. Extraversion and cognitive reappraisal did not influence visual search. These findings add to our understanding regarding the influence of extraversion, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression on our ability to allocate attention during visual search when viewing real-world scenes.

Resting-State Functional Connectivity Associated With Extraversion and Agreeableness in Adolescence

Although adolescence is a period in which developmental changes occur in brain connectivity, personality formation, and peer interaction, few studies have examined the neural correlates of personality dimensions related to social behavior within adolescent samples. The current study aims to investigate whether adolescents’ brain functional connectivity is associated with extraversion and agreeableness, personality dimensions linked to peer acceptance, social network size, and friendship quality. Considering sex-variant neural maturation in adolescence, we also examined sex-specific associations between personality and functional connectivity. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from a community sample of 70 adolescents aged 12–15, we examined associations between self-reported extraversion and agreeableness and seed-to-whole brain connectivity with the amygdala as a seed region of interest. Then, using 415 brain regions that correspond to 8 major brain networks and subcortex, we explored neural connectivity within brain networks and across the whole-brain. We conducted group-level multiple regression analyses with the regressors of extraversion, agreeableness, and their interactions with sex. Results demonstrated that amygdala connectivity with the postcentral gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and the temporal pole is positively associated with extraversion in girls and negatively associated with extraversion in boys. Agreeableness was positively associated with amygdala connectivity with the middle occipital cortex and superior parietal cortex, in the same direction for boys and girls. Results of the whole-brain connectivity analysis revealed that the connectivity of the postcentral gyrus, located in the dorsal attention network, with regions in default mode network (DMN), salience/ventral attention network, and control network (CON) was associated with extraversion, with most connections showing positive associations in girls and negative associations in boys. For agreeableness, results of the within-network connectivity analysis showed that connections within the limbic network were positively associated with agreeableness in boys while negatively associated with or not associated with agreeableness in girls. Results suggest that intrinsic functional connectivity may contribute to adolescents’ individual differences in extraversion and agreeableness and highlights sex-specific neural connectivity patterns associated with the two personality dimensions. This study deepens our understanding of the neurobiological correlates of adolescent personality that may lead to different developmental trajectories of social experience.

Similar brains blend emotion in similar ways: Neural representations of individual difference in emotion profiles

Our daily emotional experience is a complex construct that usually involves multiple emotions blended in a context-dependent manner. However, the co-occurring and context-dependent nature of human emotions was understated in previous studies when addressing the individual difference in emotional experiences. The present study proposed a situated and blended 'profile' perspective to characterize individualized emotional experiences. Eighty participants watched a series of emotional videos with their EEG recorded, and the individual differences in their emotion profiles were measured as the vector distances between their multidimensional emotion ratings for these video stimuli. This measure was found to be a reliable descriptor of individualized emotional experiences and could efficiently predict classical emotional complexity indices. More importantly, inter-subject representational analyses revealed that similar emotion profiles were associated with similar delta-band activities over the prefrontal and temporo-parietal regions and similar theta-band activities over the frontal regions. Furthermore, left- and right-lateralized temporo-parietal representations were observed for positive and negative emotion profiles, respectively. Our findings demonstrate the potential of taking a 'profile' perspective for understanding individual differences in human emotions.

Development of emotion processing and regulation: Insights from event-related potentials and implications for internalizing disorders

Emotionally-salient stimuli receive selective attention and elicit complex neural responses that evolve considerably across development. Event-related potentials (ERPs) optimally capture the dynamics of emotion processing and regulation, with sensitivity to detect changes in magnitude, latency, and maximal location across development. In this selective qualitative review, we summarize evidence of developmental changes in neural reactivity to emotional stimuli and modulation of neural responses during emotion regulation indexed by ERPs across infancy, childhood, and adolescence. The cumulative ERP literature suggests the transition from childhood to adulthood is characterized by a gradual decrease in neural reactivity to emotional stimuli and increased efficiency in attentional allocation towards emotional stimuli. Some studies show sensitivity to emotional stimuli peaks in adolescence, but the evidence is mixed. While both early (<300 ms) and late (>300 ms) ERPs demonstrate sensitivity to emotional stimuli, emotional modulation is more consistently observed in relatively later ERPs across development. The literature additionally shows improvements in regulation abilities across development, though ERP research on developmental changes in emotion regulation is still relatively limited, highlighting a critical direction for future research. Finally, we briefly discuss changes in emotion-related ERPs relevant to the emergence of depression and anxiety. Findings from this review indicate that ERPs provide abundant information about the development of emotion processing and regulation, with potential clinical utility for detecting early-emerging vulnerabilities for internalizing forms of psychopathology.

The emotion-elicited late positive potential is stable across five testing sessions

Many studies have examined associations between neural and behavioral markers of attention to emotion and individual differences in affective functioning. However, the majority of these studies are cross-sectional, and examine associations between brain, behavior, and individual differences at one or two time-points, limiting our understanding of the extent to which these neural responses reflect trait-like patterns of attention. The present study used the Emotional Interrupt paradigm, and examined the stability and trajectory of behavioral (i.e., reaction time to targets following task-irrelevant appetitive, neutral, and aversive images), and neural responses to images (i.e., the late positive potential or LPP), across five sessions separated by one week in 86 individuals. Additionally, we examined the extent to which the LPP and behavioral measures were sensitive to naturally occurring daily fluctuations in positive and negative affect. Results indicate that, though the magnitude of the conditional LPP waveforms decreased over time, the degree of emotional modulation (i.e., differentiation of emotional from neutral) did not; in fact, differentiation of appetitive from neutral increased over time. Behavioral responses were similarly stable across sessions. Additionally, we largely did not observe significant effects of state positive and negative affect on the LPP or behavior over time. Finally, the LPP elicited by appetitive images significantly predicted reaction time to targets following these images. These data suggest that neural and behavioral markers of attention to motivationally salient cues may be trait-like in nature, and may be helpful in future studies seeking to identify markers of vulnerability for diverse forms of psychopathology.

Psychometric properties of the late positive potential in adult females

The late positive potential (LPP) is an event related potential (ERP) that has been used to study the processing of emotional stimuli and has been proposed as a biomarker for depression. However, to relate the LPP to trait-like individual differences it is important to first determine its psychometric properties. The current study assessed the reliability and internal consistency of the LPP in a large adult sample of women. We assessed the LPP following pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images at baseline (n = 266) and approximately eight weeks later (n = 193). The LPP demonstrated good test-retest reliability and good-to-excellent internal consistency at both time points. The LPP response was not associated with concurrent depressive symptoms. These findings suggest the LPP is a relatively stable and reliable measure of emotional processing, but further research with larger samples and more elevated depression scores may be needed in order to clarify the associations between depression and LPP.

The reliability of visual ERP components in children across the first year of school

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are increasingly used as neurophysiological markers of perceptual and cognitive processes conveying risk for psychopathology. However, little is known about the reliability of ERP components during childhood, a time of substantial brain maturation. In the present study, we examine the early visual ERP components (P1, N170, VPP), frequently examined as indicators of attentional bias, for 110 children at kindergarten (T1) and first grade (T2). Children performed a Go/Nogo task at both time points, with exact stimuli changed to reduce habituation. All components showed increases in absolute amplitude and the P1 and VPP also showed decreases in latency. Retest reliability across time was good to very good for amplitude measures (Pearson rs ranging from .54 for N170 to .69 for P1) and low to very good for latencies (rs from .34 for P1 to .60 for N170), despite the change in visual stimuli. Although there was some evidence of moderation by sex, early visual ERP components appear to be a reliable measure of individual differences in attention processing in middle childhood. This has implications for the use of early visual ERP components as trait-like markers for individual differences in perceptual processes in developmental research.

Electrophysiological responses to negative evaluative person-knowledge: Effects of individual differences

Faces transmit rich information about a unique personal identity. Recent studies examined how negative evaluative information affects event-related potentials (ERPs), the relevance of individual differences, such as trait anxiety, neuroticism, or agreeableness, for these effects is unclear. In this preregistered study, participants (N = 80) were presented with neutral faces, either associated with highly negative or neutral biographical information. Faces were shown under three different task conditions that varied the attentional focus on face-unrelated features, perceptual face information, or emotional information. Results showed a task-independent increase of the N170 component for faces associated with negative information, while interactions occurred for the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and the Late Positive Potential (LPP), showing ERP differences only when paying attention to the evaluative information. Trait anxiety and neuroticism did not influence ERP differences. Low agreeableness increased EPN differences during perceptual distraction. Thus, we observed that low agreeableness leads to early increased processing of potentially hostile faces, although participants were required to attend to a face-unrelated feature.

Emotion processing in children who do and do not stutter: An ERP study of electrocortical reactivity and regulation to peer facial expressions

PURPOSE

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the neural correlates of emotion processing in 5- to 8-year-old children who do and do not stutter.

METHODS

Participants were presented with an audio contextual cue followed by images of threatening (angry/fearful) and neutral facial expressions from similarly aged peers. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). These conditions reflected social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children.

RESULTS

P100, N170, and late positive potential (LPP) ERP components were elicited over parietal and occipital electrodes. The threat condition elicited an increased LPP mean amplitude compared to the neutral condition across our participants, suggesting increased emotional reactivity to threatening facial expressions. In addition, LPP amplitude decreased during the reappraisal condition- evidence of emotion regulation. No group differences were observed in the mean amplitude of ERP components between children who do and do not stutter. Furthermore, dimensions of childhood temperament and stuttering severity were not strongly correlated with LPP elicitation.

CONCLUSION

These findings are suggestive that, at this young age, children who stutter exhibit typical brain activation underlying emotional reactivity and regulation to social threat from peer facial expressions.

Emotional reactivity and regulation in 5- to 8-year-old children: An ERP study of own-age face processing

The school-age years is a period of increasing social interaction with peers and development of emotion regulation in facilitating that interaction. This study was an investigation of the neural correlates of emotional reactivity and reappraisal in typically developing school-age children elicited by threatening facial expressions of same-aged peers. This experimental paradigm is novel in eliciting event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children. ERPs of 5- to 8-year-old children (N = 41, 18 females) were elicited by threatening (i.e., angry and fearful) and neutral child facial expressions, which were preceded by audio contextual cues. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). In addition, parental reporting of childhood temperament was collected to determine if elicited ERP morphologies were associated with temperamental dimensions of negative affect, extraversion, and effortful control. Elicitation of the P100 and N170 did not largely differ between conditions; however, amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP), a marker of heightened emotional reactivity and attention, was greater for threatening faces relative to neutral faces. During the reappraisal condition, no differences in ERP activity was observed compared to the threat condition. Neural substrates of emotional reactivity to social threat from peers were evident; however, the lack of ERP modulation facilitating reappraisal and the lack of strong associations between ERP morphology and temperamental dimensions is indicative of heterogeneity in LPP elicitation underlying emotion regulation in children.

Divergences among Three Higher-Order Self-Report Psychopathology Factors in Normal-Range Personality and Emotional Late Positive Potential Reactivity

Personality is related to psychopathology and its higher-order structures, but there is little research regarding neurobiological associations of higher-order psychopathology factors. This study examined the factor structure of a wide range of psychopathology and its associations with both personality and emotional reactivity revealed through the late positive potential (LPP) in a sample of 275 undergraduates. A three-factor structure of psychopathology emerged comprising Internalizing (INT), Externalizing (EXT), and Aberrant Experiences (ABX). EXT predicted aggressive disconstraint, whereas both INT and ABX predicted Alienation and Stress Reaction. INT uniquely predicted low Well-Being, and ABX predicted a rigid absorption combined with interpersonal detachment. ABX correlated with reduced parietal emotional LPP reactivity, whereas INT correlated with stronger frontal LPP reactivity to emotional versus neutral pictures.

Developmental trajectories to reduced activation of positive valence systems: A review of biological and environmental contributions

Reduced activation of positive valence systems (PVS), including blunted neural and physiological responses to pleasant stimuli and rewards, has been shown to prospectively predict the development of psychopathology. Yet, little is known about how reduced PVS activation emerges across development or what implications it has for prevention. We review genetic, temperament, parenting, and naturalistic and laboratory stress research on neural measures of PVS and outline developmentally-informed models of trajectories of PVS activation. PVS function is partly heritable and appears to reflect individual differences in early-emerging temperament traits. Although lab-induced stressors blunt PVS activation, effects of parenting and naturalistic stress on PVS are mixed and depend on the type of stressor, developmental timing, and interactions amongst risk factors. We propose that there may be multiple, dynamic developmental trajectories to reduced PVS activation in which combinations of genes, temperament, and exposure to severe, prolonged, or uncontrollable stress may exert direct and interactive effects on PVS function. Critically, these risk factors may alter PVS developmental trajectories and/or PVS sensitivity to proximal stressors. Distinct factors may converge such that PVS activation proceeds along a typical, accelerated, chronically low, or stress-reactive trajectory. Finally, we present directions for future research with translational implications.

Significance?& Significance! Empirical, methodological, and theoretical connections between the late positive potential and P300 as neural responses to stimulus significance: An integrative review

Event-related potential studies of emotional processing have focused on the late positive potential (LPP), a sustained positive deflection in the ERP that is increased for emotionally arousing stimuli. A prominent theory suggests that modulation of the LPP is a response to stimulus significance, defined in terms of the activation of appetitive and aversive motivational systems. The current review incorporates experimental studies showing that manipulations that alter the significance of stimuli alter LPP amplitude. Complementing these within-person studies, also included is individual differences research on depression wherein the LPP has been used to study reduced neural sensitivity to emotional stimuli. Finally, the current review builds an existing framework that the LPP observed in studies in emotional processing and the P300 observed in classic oddball studies may reflect a common response to stimulus significance. This integrative account has implications for the functional interpretation of these ERPs, their neurobiological mechanisms, and clinical applications.

Intrinsic neural circuitry of depression in adolescent females

BACKGROUND

Adolescence is characterized by affective and cognitive changes that increase vulnerability to depression, especially in females. Neurodevelopmental models attribute adolescent depression to abnormal responses in amygdala, striatum, and prefrontal cortex (PFC). We examined whether the strength of functional brain networks involving these regions predicts depression symptoms in adolescent females.

METHODS

In this longitudinal study, we recorded resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in 174 adolescent females. Using a cross-validation strategy, we related RSFC profiles that included (a) a network consisting of amygdala, striatum, and PFC (within-circuit model), (b) connectivity of this network to the whole brain (extended-circuit model), and (c) a network consisting of the entire brain (whole-brain model) to depression symptoms assessed concurrently and 18 months later.

RESULTS

In testing subsets, the within-circuit RSFC profiles were associated with depression symptoms concurrently and 18 months later, while the extended-circuit and whole-brain model did not explain any additional variance in depression symptoms. Connectivity related to anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex contributed most to the association.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrate that RSFC-based brain networks that include amygdala, striatum, and PFC are stable neural signatures of concurrent and future depression symptoms, representing a significant step toward identifying the neural mechanism of depression in adolescence.

Personality Traits and Emotional Word Recognition: An ERP Study

Recent research has investigated how personality trait differences influence the processing of emotion conveyed by pictures, but limited research has examined the emotion conveyed by words. The present study investigated whether extraversion (extroverts vs. introverts) and neuroticism (high neurotics vs. low neurotics) influence the processing of positive, neutral, and negative words that were matched for arousal. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded from healthy participants while they performed a lexical decision task. We found that personality traits influenced emotional word recognition at N400 (300-450 ms) and LPC (450-800 ms). At the earlier (N400) stage, the more extraverted and neurotic a participant was, the more reduced the N400s for the positive words relative to neutral words were. This suggests that the extroverts and high neurotics (i.e., high impulsivity) identified positive content in words during lexical feature retrieval, which facilitated such retrieval. At the later (LPC) stage, both the introverts and high neurotics (i.e., high anxiety) showed greater LPCs to negative than neutral words, indicating their sustained attention and elaborative processing of negative information. These results suggest that extraversion and neuroticism collectively influence different stages of emotional word recognition in a way that is consistent with Gray's biopsychological theory of personality.

Sex-Specific Differences in Severity of Depressive Symptoms, Heart Rate Variability, and Neurocognitive Profiles of Depressed Young Adults: Exploring Characteristics for Mild Depression

Mild depressive symptoms (MDS) reflect vulnerability to major depression that does not meet the criteria for a major depressive disorder (MDD). Previous research indicates that it is difficult to identify MDS in young adults, and they exhibit diverse aspects of depressive symptoms caused by clinical depression, which can lead to poor academic performance, relationship difficulties, and even suicide. Additionally, many young adults remain unaware of their depressive symptoms during the early stages of MDD. Thus, the present study investigated clinical, neurocognitive, and physiological characteristics of young adults with various symptoms of depression and explored sex-specific differences. A total of 113 students aged 18-35 (MDD: n = 32; MDS: n =37; control [CON]: n = 44) participated in the study. Self-report clinical measures, short-term cardiac activity measured by finger sensors, and neurocognitive data were collected. Pearson's correlations, two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), principal component analysis, and exploratory structural equation modeling were conducted for the statistical analyses. Furthermore, the measurement invariance of the latent factor model was tested, and fit indices were compared according to sex. The results revealed that male students showed greater sympatho-vagal activity than female students. Additionally, male MDS students tended to exhibit decreased performance levels in neurocognitive function tasks compared with MDD and CON males, whereas female MDS students showed distinct characteristics compared to MDD and CON females on self-report measures of anxiety. Correlation analyses identified a positive association between the level of anger perception and latency in the executive function test among both males and females. Additionally, the use of a structured model revealed significant sex-specific differences in factor estimates. The present results suggest that recognizing the early signs of MDS that account for sex-specific differences in both subjective and objective measures may improve the diagnosis and monitoring of young adults with MDS.

Developmental trajectory of the late positive potential: Using temporal-spatial PCA to characterize within-subject developmental changes in emotional processing

The late positive potential (LPP) is characterized by temporal and spatial changes across development-though existing work has primarily relied on visual or statistical comparisons of relatively few electrodes and averaged activity over time. The current study used an empirically based approach to characterize temporal and spatial changes in ERPs over time. Data were utilized from a large longitudinal study (N = 380) in which the LPP was recorded to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures around age 9 and again around age 12. Age 9 ERPs were subtracted from age 12 ERPs for all three image types; the resulting ERPs for each subject at each electrode site were then submitted to a temporospatial principal component analysis (PCA). A PCA factor was greater in amplitude for emotional pictures compared to neutral pictures between ages 9 and 12, evident as an occipital negativity and frontocentral positivity that peaked approximately 850 ms following picture presentation. Furthermore, the factor scores to emotional pictures for this component increased as a function of age 12 pubertal development, consistent with the notion that the LPP shifts from occipital to more frontocentral sites in relation to developmental changes from childhood to adolescence. A similar factor was observed when PCA was applied to all ERPs from both ages 9 and 12. Using temporospatial PCA on ERPs collected from the same subjects over time-especially within-subject subtraction-based ERPs-provides a concise way of characterizing and quantifying within-subject developmental changes in both the timing and scalp distribution of ERPs.

Do oral contraceptives modulate an ERP response to affective pictures?

Indications exist that use of oral contraceptives affects women's socio-emotional behaviour, brain function and, cognitive abilities, but the information is still scarce and ambiguous. We aimed to examine affective processing of visual stimuli between oral contraceptive users (OC, n = 33) and naturally cycling women (NC, n = 37) using the event-related potential (ERP) method. The main findings are: (i) emotionally arousing stimuli elicited significantly enlarged late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes compared to neutral stimuli, (ii) anti-androgenic OC users demonstrated diminished brain reactivity to visual stimuli, and (iii) significantly blunted reaction to highly unpleasant images. In addition, a positive relationship between GFP evoked by the highly unpleasant and highly pleasant visual emotional stimuli and progesterone was observed in NC women, while OC users demonstrated a trend of negative relationship between GFP and progesterone level. These findings suggest possible modulations of affective processing of visual stimuli when hormonal contraceptives are used.

Neural mechanisms of affective instability and cognitive control in substance use

OBJECTIVE

We explored the impact of affect on cognitive control as this relates to individual differences in affective instability and substance use. Toward this end, we examined how different dimensions of affective instability interact to predict substance misuse and the effect of this on two event-related potential components, the reward positivity and the late positive potential, which are said to reflect the neural mechanisms of reward and emotion processing, respectively.

METHODS

We recorded the ongoing electroencephalogram from undergraduate students as they navigated two T-maze tasks in search of rewards. One of the tasks included neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant pictures from the International Affective Picture System. Participants also completed several questionnaires pertaining to substance use and personality.

RESULTS

A principal components analysis revealed a factor related to affective instability, which we named reactivity. This factor significantly predicted increased substance use. Individuals reporting higher levels of affective reactivity also displayed a larger reward positivity following stimuli with emotional content.

CONCLUSION

The current study uncovered a group of high-risk substance users who were characterized by greater levels of affective reactivity and context-specific increased sensitivity to rewards.

SIGNIFICANCE

These results help to elucidate the complex factors underlying substance use and may facilitate the creation of individually-tailored treatment programs for those struggling with substance use disorders.

Structural correlates of the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala and personality in female adolescents

The five-factor model consists of cognitive-affective-behavioral trait dimensions (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness) that are central to models of psychopathology. In adults, individual differences in three of the Big Five traits, neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness, have been linked to structural morphology and connectivity of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the amygdala, two brain regions critically involved in affective and regulatory processing. It is unclear whether these associations manifest in adolescence, a critical neurodevelopmental period during which many forms of psychiatric illness emerge. A total of 223 adolescent girls (ages 14-16 years) completed a multimodal neuroimaging study that utilized T1-weighted structural MRI (e.g., cortical thickness and volume) and tractography-based diffusion tensor imaging (64-direction). Cortical thickness and volume were extracted from the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and amygdala and tractography-based fractional anisotropy was computed in the uncinate fasciculus (UF; the white matter tract connecting the OFC to the temporal lobe). We found that high neuroticism was associated with less mOFC volume (bilateral), and low conscientiousness was associated with higher white matter integrity in the UF, more amygdala volume, and less mOFC thickness (right hemisphere). Extraversion was not observed to share associations with OFC markers. These OFC-amygdala structural correlations to personality do not match those reported in adult samples. Multimodal neuroimaging techniques can help to clarify the underpinnings of personality development between adolescence and adulthood.

Extraversion, neuroticism, and the electrocortical response to monetary rewards in adolescent girls

Affective personality traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism, are associated with individual differences in reward system functioning. The reward positivity (ΔRewP) is an event-related potential (ERP) component that indexes sensitivity to reward, and can be elicited by feedback indicating monetary gains relative to losses. In a sample of 508 adolescent girls, the current study examined the relationship between extraversion, neuroticism, and their respective facets and the ΔRewP. Results indicated an Extraversion × Neuroticism interaction, such that greater extraversion was associated with an increased ΔRewP, but only in the context of low neuroticism. This association was primarily due to the extraversion facet positive emotionality-high levels of positive emotionality were associated with an increased ΔRewP, but only in the context of low neuroticism. In addition, increased neuroticism diminished the age-related increase in the ΔRewP. The current study suggests that both extraversion and neuroticism are associated with reward system function in adolescence.

Neural Response to Pleasant Pictures Moderates Prospective Relationship Between Stress and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Girls

Adolescent girls are at increased risk for depression, which is thought to result from the interaction of biological vulnerabilities and life stressors common to adolescent girls. A blunted late positive potential (LPP) to emotional stimuli (i.e., pleasant and unpleasant) has been associated with depressive symptoms and risk. The current study of adolescent girls examines the moderating effects of the LPP, a candidate biomarker of depression, of the link between life stress and increases in depressive symptoms over 1 year. We measured LPP to pleasant and unpleasant pictures from the International Affective Picture Set among 143 predominantly Caucasian adolescent girls ages 8 to 14, who also reported on the frequency of common life stressors. Self-reported depressive symptoms were assessed both at baseline and 1 year after the initial lab visit. The LPP to pleasant pictures moderated the relationship between baseline life stressors and the change in depressive symptoms. Specifically, life stress was associated with increases in depressive symptoms when the LPP to pleasant pictures was blunted, whereas life stress was associated with decreases in depressive symptoms when the LPP to pleasant pictures was potentiated. These effects showed some specificity to family and school-related stressors and to anhedonic and efficacy-related depressive symptoms. A similar pattern, though not statistically significant, was found for the LPP to unpleasant pictures. Together, these findings suggest that the LPP to pleasant pictures may represent a useful biomarker in identifying individuals at greatest risk of experiencing depressive symptoms following stress.

Emotional eating and instructed food-cue processing in adolescents: An ERP study

We examined the P3 (250-500ms) and Late Positive Potential (LPP; 500-2000ms) event-related potentials (ERPs) to food vs. nonfood cues among adolescents reporting on emotional eating (EE) behavior. Eighty-six adolescents 10-17 years old were tested using an instructed food versus nonfood cue viewing task (imagine food taste) during high-density EEG recording. Self-report data showed that EE increased with age in girls, but not in boys. Both P3 and LPP amplitudes were greater for food vs. nonfood cues (food-cue bias). Exploratory analyses revealed that, during the LPP time period, greater EE was associated with a more positive food-cue bias in the fronto-central region. This heightened fronto-central food-cue bias LPP is in line with a more activated prefrontal attention system. The results suggest that adolescents with higher EE may engage more top-down cognitive resources to regulate their automatic emotional response to food cues, and/or they may exhibit greater reward network activation to food cues than do adolescents with lower EE, even in the absence of an emotional mood induction.

Distinct Associations Between Low Positive Affect, Panic, and Neural Responses to Reward and Threat During Late Stages of Affective Picture Processing

BACKGROUND

Abnormal patterns of attention to threat and reward have been proposed as potential mechanisms of dysfunction in anxiety and mood disorders. However, research on this topic has been inconsistent, perhaps because of both clinical heterogeneity in the samples assessed and measurement of attentional biases that is temporally imprecise.

METHODS

The present study measured transdiagnostic symptoms of anxiety and depression in 205 young adults and recorded affect-modulated event-related potentials in response to task-irrelevant pictures in a speeded response task.

RESULTS

Low positive affect was uniquely associated with reduced modulation of later event-related potentials (i.e., the P300 and the late positive potential) by rewarding images, suggesting deficits in sustained attention to reward. Low positive affect was also associated with a blunted threat-elicited late positive potential. Symptoms of panic were associated with an increased N1 to rewarding images, as well as an increased late positive potential to all picture types.

CONCLUSIONS

These data suggest that dysfunction in neural markers of sustained attention to threat and reward relate in specific ways to transdiagnostic symptom dimensions of anxiety and depression. Moreover, event-related potentials are likely to be useful in investigations of the time course of attentional abnormalities associated with these symptom dimensions.

Emotion processing in female youth: Testing the stability of the late positive potential

The Emotional Interrupt Task (EIT) has been used to probe emotion processing in healthy and clinical samples; however, research exploring the stability and reliability of behavioral measures and ERPs elicited from this task is limited. Establishing the psychometric properties of the EIT is critical, particularly as phenotypes and biological indicators may represent traitlike characteristics that underlie psychiatric illness. To address this gap, test-retest stability and internal consistency of behavioral indices and ERPs resulting from the EIT in healthy, female youth (n = 28) were examined. At baseline, participants were administered the EIT while high-density 128-channel EEG data were recorded to probe the late positive potential (LPP). One month later, participants were readministered the EIT. Four principal findings emerged. First, there is evidence of an interference effect at baseline, as participants showed a slower reaction time for unpleasant and pleasant images relative to neutral images, and test-retest of behavioral measures was relatively stable over time. Second, participants showed a potentiated LPP to unpleasant and pleasant images compared to neutral images, and these effects were stable over time. Moreover, in a test of the difference waves (unpleasant-neutral vs. pleasant-neutral), there was sustained positivity for unpleasant images. Third, behavioral measures and LPP demonstrated excellent internal consistency (odd/even correlations) across conditions. Fourth, highlighting important age-related differences in LPP activity, younger age was associated with larger LPP amplitudes across conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that the LPP following emotional images is a stable and reliable marker of emotion processing in healthy youth.

Deficits in recognizing disgust facial expressions and Internet addiction: Perceived stress as a mediator

Studies have examined social maladjustment among individuals with Internet addiction, but little is known about their deficits in specific social skills and the underlying psychological mechanisms. The present study filled these gaps by (a) establishing a relationship between deficits in facial expression recognition and Internet addiction, and (b) examining the mediating role of perceived stress that explains this hypothesized relationship. Ninety-seven participants completed validated questionnaires that assessed their levels of Internet addiction and perceived stress, and performed a computer-based task that measured their facial expression recognition. The results revealed a positive relationship between deficits in recognizing disgust facial expression and Internet addiction, and this relationship was mediated by perceived stress. However, the same findings did not apply to other facial expressions. Ad hoc analyses showed that recognizing disgust was more difficult than recognizing other facial expressions, reflecting that the former task assesses a social skill that requires cognitive astuteness. The present findings contribute to the literature by identifying a specific social skill deficit related to Internet addiction and by unveiling a psychological mechanism that explains this relationship, thus providing more concrete guidelines for practitioners to strengthen specific social skills that mitigate both perceived stress and Internet addiction.

Behavioral observations of positive and negative valence systems in early childhood predict physiological measures of emotional processing three years later

BACKGROUND

The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) constructs of Positive Valence Systems (PVS) and Negative Valence Systems (NVS) are presumed to manifest behaviorally through early-emerging temperamental negative affectivity (NA) and positive affectivity (PA). The late positive potential (LPP) is a physiological measure of attention towards both negative and positive emotional stimuli; however, its associations with behavioral aspects of PVS and NVS have yet to be examined.

METHODS

In a community sample of children (N = 340), we examined longitudinal relationships between observational measures of temperamental PA and NA assessed at age 6, and the LPP to both pleasant and unpleasant images assessed at age 9.

RESULTS

Lower PA at age 6 predicted reduced LPP amplitudes to pleasant, but not unpleasant, images. NA as a composite measure was not related to the LPP, but specific associations were observed with facets of NA: greater fear predicted an enhanced LPP to unpleasant images, whereas greater sadness predicted a reduced LPP to unpleasant images.

LIMITATIONS

We were unable to evaluate concurrent associations between behavioral observations of temperament and the LPP, and effect sizes were modest.

CONCLUSIONS

Results support correspondence between behavioral and physiological measures of emotional processing across development, and provide evidence of discriminant validity in that PA was specifically related to the LPP to pleasant images, while facets of NA were specifically linked to the LPP to unpleasant images. Distinct associations of temperamental sadness and fear with the LPP highlight the importance of further evaluating subconstructs of NVS.

Temperamental Effortful Control Modulates Gender Differences in Late Positive Potentials Evoked by Affective Pictures in Adolescents

We investigated whether effort control (EC) modulates gender differences in late positive potential (LPP) evoked by affective pictures. We collected EEG data from 46 healthy adolescents while they viewed 90 affective pictures. Relative to neutral pictures, boys showed larger LPP amplitudes for positive pictures compared to girls while girls showed larger LPP amplitudes for negative pictures compared to boys. Temperamental EC in boys negatively predicted LPP amplitudes for positive pictures, whereas EC in girls negatively predicted LPP amplitudes for negative pictures. These observations increase our understanding of the relationship between EC and gender difference in electrocortical maturation.

Vulnerability to Depression in Youth: Advances from Affective Neuroscience

Vulnerability models of depression posit that individual differences in trait-like vulnerabilities emerge early in life and increase risk for the later development of depression. In this review, we summarize advances from affective neuroscience using neural measures to assess vulnerabilities in youth at high risk for depression due to parental history of depression or temperament style, as well as prospective designs evaluating the predictive validity of these vulnerabilities for symptoms and diagnoses of depression across development. Evidence from multiple levels of analysis indicates that healthy youth at high risk for depression exhibit abnormalities in components of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) positive valence systems, including blunted activation in the striatum during reward anticipation and feedback, and that some of these measures can be used to predict later symptoms. In addition, alterations in components of RDoC's negative valence systems, including neural processing of sadness, loss, and threat, have been observed in risk for depression, though effects appear to be more task and method dependent. Within the social processes domain, preliminary evidence indicates that neural processing of social feedback, including heightened reactivity to exclusion and blunted response to social reward, may be related to depression vulnerability. These studies indicate that affective neuroscience can inform understanding of developmental pathways to depression and identify altered emotional processing among youth at high risk. We provide an integrated summary of consistent findings from this literature, along with recommendations for future directions and implications for early intervention.

Responses to affective pictures depicting humans: late positive potential reveals a sex-related effect in processing that is not present in subjective ratings

We examined sex-related effects in the amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential elicited by the presentation of emotional stimuli. Sixteen females and 18 males viewed emotional pictures to perform a visual detection task. In female participants, viewing unpleasant pictures elicited larger LPP (550-900 ms) when the pictures contained humans (human pictures) than when they did not contain humans (non-human pictures). For male participants, the results were reversed, with smaller LPP for unpleasant human pictures. Subjective ratings of valence in both female and male participants showed that unpleasant human pictures were evaluated less negatively than unpleasant non-human pictures. The results indicate that greater LPP amplitude for human than for non-human pictures occurred in females irrespective of subjective evaluations. This suggests that relatively robust processes in females cause sex-related effects in sensitivity to human pictures.

Neural Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli Prospectively Predicts the Impact of a Natural Disaster on Psychiatric Symptoms in Children

BACKGROUND

Natural disasters expose entire communities to stress and trauma, leading to increased risk for psychiatric symptoms. Yet, the majority of exposed individuals are resilient, highlighting the importance of identifying underlying factors that contribute to outcomes.

METHODS

The current study was part of a larger prospective study of children in Long Island, New York (n = 260). At age 9, children viewed unpleasant and pleasant images while the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential component that reflects sustained attention toward salient information, was measured. Following the event-related potential assessment, Hurricane Sandy, the second costliest hurricane in United States history, hit the region. Eight weeks after the hurricane, mothers reported on exposure to hurricane-related stress and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Symptoms were reassessed 8 months after the hurricane.

RESULTS

The LPP predicted both internalizing and externalizing symptoms after accounting for prehurricane symptomatology and interacted with stress to predict externalizing symptoms. Among children exposed to higher levels of hurricane-related stress, enhanced neural reactivity to unpleasant images predicted greater externalizing symptoms 8 weeks after the disaster, while greater neural reactivity to pleasant images predicted lower externalizing symptoms. Moreover, interactions between the LPP and stress continued to predict externalizing symptoms 8 months after the hurricane.

CONCLUSIONS

Results indicate that heightened neural reactivity and attention toward unpleasant information, as measured by the LPP, predispose children to psychiatric symptoms when exposed to higher levels of stress related to natural disasters, while greater reactivity to and processing of pleasant information may be a protective factor.

Depression risk and electrocortical reactivity during self-referential emotional processing in 8 to 14 year-old girls

Cognitive vulnerabilities, such as a negative self-referential processing bias, have been theorized to play a causal role in the development of depression. Indeed, depression is associated with the endorsement and recall of more negative and fewer positive emotional words (i.e., recall biases) in the self-referential encoding task (SRET). In addition, currently depressed adults and adolescents, compared to healthy controls, show an enhanced late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects sustained attentional engagement, during the processing of negative relative to positive words in the SRET. However, it is unclear whether these behavioral and neural measures in the SRET are indicators of risk for depression, or are concomitants of the disorder. The present study included 121 8 to 14 year-old girls with no lifetime history of depression, and examined the association between maternal history of depression (i.e., risk) and both behavioral and ERP measures while viewing positive and negative adjectives during the SRET. Lifetime history of major depressive disorder and/or dysthymia in the biological mother was assessed via a semistructured diagnostic interview. Results indicated that participants with maternal history of depression, compared with those with no maternal history of depression, demonstrated an enhanced LPP to negative words. There were no group differences in the LPP to positive words. Maternal history of depression was also related to faster response time when rejecting negative words. Participant's current depression symptoms were associated with increased negative recall bias and decreased positive recall bias. The present study provides novel evidence that abnormal electrocortical reactivity to negative self-referential words indexes vulnerability for depression in 8 to 14 year-old girls. (PsycINFO Database Record

Is personality relevant in the choice of bleaching?

OBJECTIVES

The purpose was to administer the NEO-FFI personality test to patients who did and did not want to have their teeth bleached and before and after bleaching to the participants who accepted the treatment. The research question is to correlate styles and personality factors with bleaching.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

There were 128 patients eligible for bleaching; 58 accepted (AB) while 70 refused (RB). The test was administered to both groups (AB-RB). The group AB was administered before and 1 week after the end of the bleaching. For each personality domain comparison, the Mann-Whitney test was used. For the group AB, the results for each domain before and after bleaching were compared using the Wilcoxon test.

RESULTS

There was a significant difference between the groups (AB-RB) in the extraversion factor (p = 0.01). There was no significant difference between any of the personality items before and after bleaching (p > 0.1). The comparison between groups by sex revealed significant differences in extraversion and neuroticism factors. Males who AB scored higher in extraversion than males who RB (p < 0.05). Females scored higher in neuroticism than males who AB (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

There were personality differences between people who decided to bleach compared with those who did not want the bleaching, which was mainly in the extroversion factor. This stereotypes the patients, who could be described as more sociable, extroverted, and concerned about esthetics and cleanliness. The bleaching protocol, however, cannot modify any of the personality factors.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE

It is important to understand a patient's behavior to meet their needs and to determine the type of patients who would like to have their teeth bleached.